Welcome to the life and times of one of the best guitarists ever - JIMI HENDRIX.

Born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington, Jimi
Hendrix learned to play guitar as a teenager, and grew up to become a rock
guitar legend who excited audiences in the 1960s with his innovative electric
guitar playing. One of his most memorable performances was at Woodstock in
1969, where he performed "The Star Spangled Banner." Hendrix died in
1970 from drug-related complications, leaving his mark on the world of rock
music and remaining popular to this day.

Guitarist,
singer and songwriter Jimmy Hendrix was born Johnny Allen Hendrix (later
changed to James Marshall) on November 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington.
Learning to play guitar as a teenager, Hendrix grew up to become a rock guitar
legend. He had a difficult childhood, sometimes living in the care of relatives
and even acquaintances at times.

His
mother, Lucille, was only 17 years old when Hendrix was born. She had a stormy
relationship with his father, Al, and eventually left the family after the
couple had two more children together, sons Leon and Joseph. Hendrix would only
see his mother sporadically before her death in 1958.

In many
ways, music became a sanctuary for Hendrix. He was a fan of blues music and
taught himself to play guitar. At the age of 14, Hendrix saw Elvis Presleyperform. He got his first
electric guitar the following year and eventually played with two bands—the
Rocking Kings and the Tomcats. In 1959, Hendrix dropped out of high school. He
worked odd jobs while continuing to follow his musical aspirations.

Hendrix
enlisted in the United States Army in 1961 and trained at Fort Ord in
California to become a paratrooper. Even as a soldier, he found time for music,
creating a band named The King Casuals. Hendrix served in the army until 1962
when he was discharged due to an injury.

After
leaving the military, Hendrix pursued his music, working as a session musician
and playing backup for such performers as Little Richard, Sam Cookeand the Isley Brothers. He also
formed a group of his own called Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, which played
gigs around New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood.

In
mid-1966, Hendrix met Chas Chandler—a former member of the Animals, a
successful rock group—who became his manager. Chandler convinced Hendrix to go
to London where he joined forces with musicians Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell
to create The Jimi Hendrix Experience. While there, Hendrix built up quite a
following among England's rock royalty.

Members
of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and Eric Clapton were all great admirers of
Hendrix's work. One critic for the British music magazine Melody Maker said
that he "had great stage presence" and looked at times as if he was
playing "with no hands at all."

Released
in 1967, the band's first single, "Hey Joe" was an instant smash in
Britain, and was soon followed by other hits such as "Purple Haze"
and "The Wind Cried Mary." On tour to support his first album, Are
You Experienced? (1967), Hendrix delighted audiences with his outrageous
guitar-playing skills and his innovative, experimental sound.

He won over
American music fans with his stunning performance at the Monterey Pop Festival
in June 1967, which ended with Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire.

Quickly
becoming a rock music superstar, Hendrix scored again with his second album, Axis:
Bold as Love (1968). His final album as part of the Jimi Hendrix
Experience, Electric Ladyland (1968), was released and featured the hit
"All Along the Watchtower," which was written by Bob Dylan. The band continued to tour
until it split up in 1969.

That same
year, Hendrix performed at another legendary musical event: the Woodstock
Festival. His rock rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" amazed the
crowds and demonstrated his considerable talents as a musician. He was also an
accomplished songwriter and musical experimenter. Hendrix even had his own
recording studio in which he could work with different performers and try out
new songs and sounds.

Hendrix
tried his luck with another group, forming Band of Gypsys in late 1969 with his
army buddy Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The band never really took off,
and Hendrix began working on a new album tentatively named First Rays of the
New Rising Sun, with Cox and Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix
Experience. Unfortunately Hendrix did not live to complete the project.

Hendrix
died on September 18, 1970, from drug-related complications. While this
talented recording artist was only 27 years old at the time of his passing,
Hendrix left his mark on the world of rock music and remains popular to this
day. As one journalist wrote in the Berkeley Tribe, "Jimi Hendrix could
get more out of an electric guitar than anyone else. He was the ultimate guitar
player."

Welcome to some tips from a famous man who has inspired millions - Dale Carnegie. Who was he?

Dale Breckenridge Carnegie,
born on 24th November, 1888- 1st November, 1955 was a highly acclaimed American
writer, professor and the also the founder of courses such as salesmanship,
public speaking, self-improvement and interactive skills. He was born in an
impoverished family in Maryville, Missouri. Carnegie harboured a strong love
and passion for public speaking from a very early age and was very proactive in
debate in high school. Carnegie went to the Warrensburg State Teachers College
and later onwards became a salesman for Armour and Company in Nebraska. He also
moved to New York in the pursuit of a career in acting and gave classes in
public speaking at the Young Men’s Christian Association.

Consequently, he
began to form classes of his own and also started to work on writing pamphlets,
which would eventually be published as books.

Carnegie was of the opinion that
the quickest and most effective way to build up self-confidence and self-esteem
is through public speaking and interaction.

During the early 1930’s, he
was renowned and very famous for his books and a radio program. When How to Win
Friends and Influence People was published in 1930, it became an instant
success and subsequently became one of the biggest bestsellers of all time. It
sold more than 10 million copies in many different languages. It also increased
the demand for further literary work from him and also to give lectures.
Therefore, he began work as a newspaper columnist and formed the Dave Carnegie
Institute for Effective Speaking and Human Relations, with several branches
globally. Fortunately for Carnegie, he managed to live to see the day, when his
name was associated with self-help to success that he so actively advocated and
promoted.

Carnegie loved teaching
others to climb the pillars of success. His valuable and tested advice was used
in many domains and has been the inspiration of many famous people’s success.
His book, How To Win Friends and Influence People remains one of the most
commercially famous books, primarily because of the colorful illustrations and
simple well-constructed rules. The most famous and cited maxims in the book are
“Believe that you will succeed, and you will,” and “Learn to love, respect and
enjoy other people.”

TEN TOP TIPS

1. Create your own
emotions.

“If you want to be
enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.”

Emotions work backwards too. You can use that to
your advantage. If you are stuck in a negative emotion then you can often shake
it off. Change your body – how you move, sit and stand – and act as you would
like to feel. Enthusiasm and other positive emotions are much more useful and
pleasurable for everyone in an interaction. Because…

2. It’s not so much about
the logical stuff.

“When dealing with people,
remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of
emotion.”

This is so key. Logic is good but in the end, in
interactions and in life, we are emotional creatures. We send and receive
emotions from other people. That is one reason why body language and voice
tonality is often said be up to 93% of communication. Now, those numbers were
for some specific situations but I still believe that these two ways of
communication are very, very important.

The body language and the voice tonality is a bit
like the rest of the iceberg, the great mass below the tip of the words we use.
Those two things communicate how we are feeling and give indication to what we
are thinking. And that’s why it’s important to be able to change how you feel.
To be in a positive mood while interacting. Because that will have a great
impact on how you say something and how you use your body. And those two things
will have a big impact on your results and relationships.

3. Three things you are
better off avoiding.

“Any fool can criticize,
condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be
understanding and forgiving.”

Now these things may not be easy to avoid all
together. Much of our interactions and perhaps even bonds are created and
maintained through those three negative C’s. There is a sort of twisted
pleasure in criticising, condemning and complaining. It might make you feel
more important and like a better person as you see yourself as a victim or as
you condemn other people’s behaviour.

But in the end these three C’s are negative and
limiting to your life. Bringing up negative stuff and wallowing in it will
lower your mood, motivation and general levels of wellbeing. And this can trap
you in a negative spiral of complaining, complaining with other complainers and
always finding faults in your reality.

You will also be broadcasting and receiving
negative emotions. And people in general want to feel good. So this can really
put an obstacle in the way for your interactions or relationships.

4. What is most important?

“The royal road to a man’s
heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.”

Classic advice. Don’t talk too much about yourself
and your life. Listen to other people instead. However, if they ramble on and
on, if they don’t reciprocate and show and interest in your life then you don’t
have to stay.

Some things people may treasure the most include
ideas, children, a special hobby and the job. And…

5. Focus outward, not
inward.

“You can make more friends
in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years
by trying to get other people interested in you.”

A lot of people use the second, far less effective
way. It is appealing because it’s about instant gratification and about ME, ME,
ME! The first way – to become interested in people – perhaps works better
because it make you a pleasant exception and because the law of reciprocity is
strong in people. As you treat people, they will treat you. Be interested in
them and they will be interested in you.

I would like to add that one hard thing about this
can be to be genuinely interested in the other guy/gal. Your genuine
interest is projected though your body language and tonality. So, just waiting
for the other person to stop talking so you can talk again isn’t really genuine
interest. And that may shine through. And so your interactions will suffer.

6. Take control of your
emotions.

“The person who seeks all
their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping.”

It wrote about this problem a few days ago in 9 Great Ways to Make Yourself Absolutely Miserable.
And it basically consist of being too reliant or dependent on external
validation from other people. External validation is something someone
communicates to you that tells you that you are person of value. That you, for
example, are pretty, smart or successful.

This leaves much of your emotions in the hands of
other people. It becomes an emotional rollercoaster. One day you feel great.
The next day you feel like just staying in bed.

But if you fill that inner cup of validation for
yourself instead then you take over the wheel. Now you’re driving, now you
control how you feel. You can still appreciate compliments of course, but you
aren’t dependent on them.

This will make you more emotionally stable and
enables you to cultivate and build your emotional muscles in a more controlled
way. You can for instance help yourself to become more optimistic or
enthusiastic more of the time. This stability and growth can be big help in
your relationships.

7. No, they are not holding
you back.

“Instead of worrying about
what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they
will admire.”

This may feel disappointing. It can also be
liberating. It helps you remove inner obstacles that are you holding yourself
back.

As you, bit by bit or in one big swoop, release
those inner brakes you become more of yourself. You become more confident, you
have a better chance at success, and you will feel more positive feelings and
less negative ones. All these things can give a big boost to your interactions
and help you sharpen those social skills.

8. So, what’s in it for me?

“There is only one way… to
get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do
it.”

If you want someone to do something then will they
care about your motivation for getting this thing done? Perhaps. Often they
will not have that great of an interest in what you want out of something.

They want to know what they will get out of it. So, for the both of
you to get what you want out of something tell that person what’s in it for
him/her. And try to be genuine and positive about it. A reason for them to do it
delivered in a lame, half-assed manner may not be so persuasive. And so you
both lose.

9. How to win an argument.

“The only way to get the
best of an argument is to avoid it.”

Getting two egos wrapped up in an argument, having
two sides defending their positions desperately, will not improve
relationships. You are more likely to feel negative feelings towards each other
long after the argument is over. And so you both wallow in negativity and you
both lose. When possible, just avoiding unnecessary arguments is a win-win
situation.

10. It’s about more than
your words.

“There are four ways, and
only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and
classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and
how we say it.”

Think about how you feel because that will be
reflected out into the world. And the world will often reflect back something
similar.

Clancy's comment: He makes a lot of sense, eh? Common sense in the end, but it ain't that common.